NestJS APM with Elastic and Docker

Introduction

Observability is a crucial aspect of modern software development, offering a comprehensive view into the performance and behavior of applications. As applications become more complex and distributed, understanding how they function in real-time becomes paramount. Application Performance Monitoring (APM) plays a pivotal role in observability, providing developers with the tools to track, analyze, and optimize their applications.

In this article, we'll delve into the implementation of APM with NestJS and Elasticsearch. By harnessing the power of these technologies, developers can gain valuable insights into their application's health, identify bottlenecks, and enhance overall performance.

Pre requirements

NestJs CLI
Docker

1. Init NestJS app

$ npm i -g @nestjs/cli
$ nest new apm-example

2. Add elastic-apm-node lib

$ yarn add elastic-apm-node

3. Create env file

.env
ELASTIC_APM_SERVICE_NAME=apm-example ELASTIC_APM_SERVER_URL=http://apm-server:8200

4. Add @nestjs/config

$ yarn add @nestjs/config

5. Import ConfigModule

app.module.ts



import { Module } from '@nestjs/common';
import { AppController } from './app.controller';
import { AppService } from './app.service';
import { ApmModule } from './apm/apm.module';
import { ConfigModule } from '@nestjs/config';

@Module({
  imports: [
    ApmModule,
    ConfigModule.forRoot({
      envFilePath: '.env',
      isGlobal: true,
    }),
  ],
  controllers: [AppController],
  providers: [AppService],
})
export class AppModule {}

6. Compiler options

Add compiler options configurations for correct functioning of the agent
Elastic config agent with ts
tsconfig.json
"esModuleInterop": true, "moduleResolution": "node"

7. Create apm module and service

$ nest g module apm
$ nest g service apm

apm.module.ts



import { Module } from '@nestjs/common';
import { ApmService } from './apm.service';

@Module({
  providers: [ApmService],
})
export class ApmModule {}

apm.service.ts



import { Injectable } from '@nestjs/common';
import 'elastic-apm-node/start';

@Injectable()
export class ApmService {}

8. Create files Dockerfile and docker-compose

Create Dockerfile and docker-compose.yml in src folder:
Dockerfile



FROM node:18.12.0-alpine AS build

WORKDIR /app

COPY package.json yarn.lock ./

RUN yarn 

COPY . .

RUN yarn build

FROM node:18.12.0-alpine

WORKDIR /app

COPY --from=build /app/node_modules ./node_modules
COPY --from=build /app/dist ./dist
COPY --from=build /app/package.json ./package.json
COPY --from=build /app/yarn.lock ./yarn.lock

EXPOSE ${PORT}

CMD ["yarn", "start:prod"]

docker-compose.yml



version: '3.7'

services:

  apm-example:

    hostname: apm-example

    restart: on-failure

    build:

      context: .

      dockerfile: ./Dockerfile

    volumes:

      - .:/app

    env_file:

      - .env

    ports:

      - "3000:3000"

    command: npm run start:dev

    depends_on:

      - apm-server

    cpus: 1

    mem_limit: 1024M

  elasticsearch:

    image: docker.elastic.co/elasticsearch/elasticsearch:7.12.1

    container_name: elasticsearch

    environment:

      - discovery.type=single-node

      - "ES_JAVA_OPTS=-Xms512m -Xmx512m"

    ulimits:

      memlock:

        soft: -1

        hard: -1

    volumes:

      - es-data:/usr/share/elasticsearch/data

    ports:

      - 9200:9200

    healthcheck:

      interval: 30s

      retries: 10

      test: curl -s http://localhost:9200/_cluster/health | grep -vq '"status":"red"'

  kibana:

    image: docker.elastic.co/kibana/kibana:7.12.1

    container_name: kibana

    ports:

      - 5601:5601

    environment:

      ELASTICSEARCH_URL: http://elasticsearch:9200

    cpus: 0.1

    mem_limit: 256M 

    depends_on:

      elasticsearch:

        condition: service_healthy

    healthcheck:

      interval: 40s

      retries: 20

      test: curl --write-out 'HTTP %{http_code}' --fail --silent --output /dev/null http://localhost:5601/api/status

  apm-server:

    image: docker.elastic.co/apm/apm-server:7.17.16

    depends_on:

      elasticsearch:

        condition: service_healthy

      kibana:

        condition: service_healthy

    cap_add: ["CHOWN", "DAC_OVERRIDE", "SETGID", "SETUID"]

    cap_drop: ["ALL"]

    ports:

    - 8200:8200

    command: >

       apm-server -e

         -E apm-server.rum.enabled=true

         -E setup.kibana.host=kibana:5601

         -E setup.template.settings.index.number_of_replicas=0

         -E apm-server.kibana.enabled=true

         -E apm-server.kibana.host=kibana:5601

         -E output.elasticsearch.hosts=["elasticsearch:9200"]

    healthcheck:

      interval: 10s

      retries: 12

      test: curl --write-out 'HTTP %{http_code}' --fail --silent --output /dev/null http://localhost:8200/

    cpus: 0.1

    mem_limit: 256M 

volumes:

  es-data: